Aux Lights: Have you been talking behind my back?

surfran · Mar 1, 2004

HoggyB,

Unfortunately my digital camera is broke and I have been too cheap to buy a new one. But I have located a similar light on the following website. http://www.gemplers.com/items/G50833.asp Of course mine from Wal-Mart were about $15-17.

They are actually called magnetic work lights, but are the same 55W halogens as on the fog lights.

I just threw out the packaging last week, so I cannot tell you what brand they actually are without going out to check and it's dark. If you would like, let me know and I will get that info if it's on the lights.

They are working well for me, and I have run under some small branches and not ripped them off yet /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

HoggyB · Mar 4, 2004

Ok- I ordered a set of lights from www.toolking.com

As far as hooking them up, I found two wires under my seat with round friction fit connectors. One male and one female.

Are these the ones to use? I thought someone mentioned some sort of proprietary connector, but these are standard connectors.

Hog

surfran · Mar 4, 2004

Yes those are the ones I used.

HoggyB · Mar 4, 2004

Ok- This is probably a stupid question, but is there any polarity to these lights?

I should be able to splice my lights into the connectors under the seat without worrying about that. Right?

Hog

Bird · Mar 4, 2004

Hog, a light bulb will work just fine with reversed polarity alright, but it's customary for most 12 volt stuff to use a red wire for the "hot" and a black for the ground. Of course, if you have lights with a black and (white or some other color), then I'd still use the black for the ground.

surfran · Mar 5, 2004

HoggyB,

Yes there typically is a polarity as one side of the wiring is typically grounded to the light chassis and if you hook that one up to the + side it will blow your fuse (or worse if no fuse).

HoggyB · Mar 6, 2004

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Yes there typically is a polarity as one side of the wiring is typically grounded to the light chassis and if you hook that one up to the + side it will blow your fuse (or worse if no fuse).

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Yikes! That makes perfect sense.

How can I tell which of the two wires under the seat is the ground? My guess is it HAS to be the exposed male.

I should be able to confirm with my multimeter, eh? Or a circuit tester? I wonder if the one I use on my house wiring (inductive amplifier?) would work?

I'll take some toys with me tomorrow and experiment.

Hog

Junkman · Mar 6, 2004

There in no ground wire on a tractor. The entire metal surfaces are the ground. You just make the connection to any bare surface and it will be the ground back to the battery negative terminal. Same as with your car. Wires carry the current from the positive side of the battery to the appliance and the return path is always the metal of the vehicle. If you don't understand this principle, then learn about automotive wiring before you get started so you don't have any disastrous results. Even though a tractor is 12 volts, the chance of fire is just as great as with home wiring, but the chance of electrocution isn't. Voltage hurts, amperage kills.

surfran · Mar 6, 2004

HoggyB,

Junkman is correct that the negative really only has to be grounded to the chassis, but Kubota does supply the ground wire under the seat (at least on my BX1800 they did) as well as the positive one. I would use theirs as you know it is grounded correctly and you don't have mess around with creating a good ground (ie. removing paint and using star washers).

On my machine, the positive wire is pink with black stripe and has the female round connector. The negative wire is black and has the male round wire. I believe I traced these wires back to a separate fuse in the panel when I added mine but still added the 15 amp inline and a switch.

The lights I bought from Wally World have the negative wire attached under a screw that you cannot miss on the housing. They were originally attached to a cigarette lighter end which I removed and tied both units into a trailer type plug. On my lights the positive lead wire had writing on it and the negative did not so it was easy to follow.

Of course the nice thing is I can remove mine easily by cutting the 3 tie wraps I used to keep the wiring neat and taking them off /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif I also used spiral wrap to help protect the wires.

I only intend to have mine on during Winter as most stuff I do in the rest of the year is done during daylight.

You can check the polarity by turning on the key and checking for 12V on the wire to the chassis of the tractor.

Good luck,